Jamie O’Brien may be best known as a freesurfer, but he’s put in his time competing. In the latest episode of his podcast with Mason Ho, the pair discussed their reasons for leaving competition behind and shared a few stories from their time on the grind. Amid all that, though JOB told one wild story of when he got all his stuff stolen then promptly shit himself mid-heat.
It was the X Games (some internet sleuthing places the moment somewhere between 2005 and 2007). The games were already off to a rough start for O’Brien, who had made the mistake of leaving his gear out on the balcony and woken up to find it all gone the next morning. Still, competition waits for no one and he had a heat to surf. He borrowed a pair of boardshorts and made his way down to the beach. On the way there, though, he made one critical error.
“I was kind of hungry,” explains O’Brien. “You know, when you wake up in a third-world country and you’re like, you don’t really know where to eat? But boom, I saw five oranges in the cooler and I eat an orange. Everyone starts showing up to the contest. I’m feeling all good. Paddle out in my heat. It’s me, Dane Reynolds, and a couple other guys – really gnarly heat. My stomach starts feeling all weird. I take off on this wave and I remember I bottom turn all like ‘uh oh.’
“I got this barrel. I was coming out of the barrel and I tried to doggy door. It hit me right in the stomach and I shit everywhere. I was underwater and I was like, ‘Oh my god.’ I literally had food poisoning because I ate the orange in that dirty Mexican water overnight in the cooler. I ended up catching a couple more waves, but they had us all mic-ed up and they couldn’t believe what was happening.”
So there you have it. Pipeline legend Jamie O’Brien once shit his pants underwater in an X Games heat with Dane Reynolds, while mic-ed up for everyone to hear.
“I was so sick for like two days and then I left that place,” concluded O’Brien. “I’ve never been back.”
